Joseph Reed Hayes

playwright

REVIEWS

It takes a particular mindset to be a Renaissance man, someone willing to wear the hats of playwright, music producer, freelance writer, radio personality, spoken-word performer, photographer and self-promoter.

All those descriptions would fit Orlando arts advocate Joseph Hayes, who wants to harness what he has learned from his diverse interests into an impressive, ambitious and exciting schedule of 13 cultural events in 2013.

"All those words have come up to describe it," Hayes says of his "13 in 13" project, a proposed slate of five jazz shows, two of Hayes' own plays, a live holiday radio drama, two arts-oriented workshops, a photo exhibit, movie screening and spoken-word performance. "Slightly mad is another one."
To turn the project into reality, Hayes has launched a fundraising campaign on the website Kickstarter.com, where his goal is to raise $7,000 by the Jan. 27 deadline. At press time, the project had received pledges for roughly half of that amount. Anyone interested in donating can visit 13in13.net for a link to the Kickstarter page.

If the fundraising push is successful, Hayes envisions a schedule that includes a mixture of free and ticketed productions. Proceeds from ticketed shows will go toward funding projects in 2014.
Tickets are on sale (at gathr.us/screening/718) for the project's inaugural event, a screening of the musical documentary "Big Easy Express," which follows alt-country darlings Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and other musicians on a train from San Francisco to New Orleans. The film will be shown Feb. 5 at the Cobb Plaza 12 in downtown Orlando.
It's appropriate that the film will be the first taste of "13 in 13," because it was among the main motivations for Hayes to undertake the project.

"I was depressed with the progress of the elections," Hayes says. "Everybody was so down on almost everything, but here's these kids, 120 people on this train, playing their music. They played their shows, then they get on the train and play some more. It was so heartening and enthusiastic. There are positive things out there. People that care about art and doing things for the world."
Hayes plans to pay the creative people involved in the shows, a cast that will include 19 musicians, 11 actors, eight directors and theater technicians, four writers, a chef, and a sound-effects person.

"I'm very enthusiastic that this is going to work, but it's a gamble," Hayes says. "We're gambling that the audiences of Orlando are looking for original theater and original jazz. It's a risk that organizations don't generally like to take, but I can do it because I'm just one person."
Hayes already has built a reputation for indie-minded events. His Jazz On Edge concert series, for instance, is celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2013 as an established forum for highly evolved jazz. His House Theater Project has streamed intimate theatrical productions online to a worldwide audience.
Other "13 in 13" highlights include a master class in composition and improvisation by trumpeter Brian Groder and pianist Tonino Miano on April 4 at the University of Central Florida. The duo will premiere their new "FluiDENSITY" CD on April 7 at the Timucua White House in Orlando.

"[Solos] is great theater for adults – a show that touches on our emotions as we connect with a couple soaring on the wings of their shared love for music, only to seemingly fall when their differences become too challenging to mount. And that is not even the end of the drama."

If you follow the arc of the output of writer-producer Joseph Reed
Hayes, you start to see a pattern of self-imposed challenges built into his
work. When the Orlando playwright won a professional development grant from
United Arts, the end product wasn’t just a chance to present some
hitherto-too-expensive work. The award seeded his first House Theater
Project – a play performed in and streamed live from his own domicile –
where he “sat and watched people’s faces more than the actors.” The wall
between performer and audience had largely melted – with the space between
them often just a couple of feet.

The game is to look for a hook in
Hayes’ ongoing works – some are transparent, some less obvious and seen only
through inference. This year the transparent game was his ambitious 13in13
series, in which Hayes posed himself the challenge of presenting 13 events
in various disciplines. Though Hayes is known for his interest in jazz – witness his Jazz on Edge series – in his two-actor play Solos, tackling the issue of class
and the role of women as creatives throughout jazz history is the
less-obvious engine.

“I’ve always seen this sort of corollary between
theater and jazz, as possibly the only two art forms where improvisation is
so crucial to what happens that every show you see is going to be different,
merely by the nature of those human interactions,” the playwright says,
explaining that signature hook in action.

“When you look at the character of Blue Miller, there is a common thread
between the styles of music and what he goes through. So he starts out
rather light and swingy, and he’s much deeper during the bebop period, and
has those same sort of aggressions and doubts and chaotic nature when we
turn free,” Hayes says. “[And] if you’re not versed in the music … it
doesn’t matter, because it’s a play.”

In Solos, Michael Sapp plays
jazz trumpeter Blue Miller, whose love life is overtly stoked by Ellie Grace
(Desiree Perez) after meeting her on New Year’s Eve of 1939; he’s playing in
the hotel her father owns. As Miller finds fame, Ellie’s covert skill as his
ghosting songwriter drives the three-act drama via the direction of Paul
Castaneda. As a romantic meet-cute, Solos might ring familiar with a
contemporary audience, but looking at the history of jazz music, you can
start to follow the real rhythm. Despite Hayes’ statement above, knowing
your jazz history could also help you follow the overarching narrative
between Ellie and Blue.

On the issue of class, jazz music has a
sordid past. It’s a lingering problem, if you look at how our institutions
present and compensate one of the few uniquely American art forms –
especially as compared to European concert music, e.g., symphonic orchestras
playing music written by dead white men. Early on, jazz was a pneumatic,
metronomic device, literally driving the tempo of business in New Orleans’
Storyville district whorehouses. The Ellie Grace character in Solos is from
a family with no dealings in that sort of business, leaving her to sublimate
her considerable songwriting talents through her trumpet-playing partner.

Yet another reason Ellie can’t make it without Blue: The history of
gender in jazz hasn’t been its proudest moment, either. Ladies singing out
front has been acceptable throughout, but the mythos of women as creators
has dragged doggedly behind for well over 50 years, short-sheeting the likes
of composers and players Mary Lou Williams and Melba Liston. Solos addresses
and drives a traditional theater piece with this premise. (Want some
confirmation of the playwright’s assertions? Wynton Marsalis, though an
unimpeachably fine musician, has become our Will Rogers of jazz history:
Look up the internet chatter on his 25-year-old Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra having never given a female instrumentalist a seat in the band.)

"A play by Joseph Reed Hayes is a welcome
oasis of cultured smarts at the Fringe, which tends toward the bawdier side
of the spectrum. His Solos takes as its topic the development of jazz, as
revealed by the decades-spanning story of a trumpeter and his wife, who
secretly pens his 'original' compositions. Music fans will have a leg up in
discerning how their working relationship reflects the flow of an entire
American century; no such foreknowledge, though, is required to appreciate
Hayes' smooth hand with dialogue."

– Orlando Weekly

The briskness of Hayes' comedy, A Slow Ride, belies the title — it's
certainly not slow going for an audience. And there's both
poignancy and joy in the way he has cleverly captured the
essence of a family's dynamics in this one ritual they share.
Hayes has been working on a project titled "13 in 13" in which
he's staging a baker's dozen of arts events during the calendar
year. The events range from movie screenings to jazz concerts to
original theater. He's entering the theater phase of the project
now.

Much of the comedy of "A Slow Ride" comes from the personality clashes between Jez, a vibrant ex-hippie with memory issues; Sue, a high-strung
worrier; and Rita, a sulky goth. Are they based on real women
Hayes has known?

"Absolutely not … and every woman I've ever known and their
relationships," says the Orlando playwright with a hearty laugh.

Hayes has opted for a nontraditional staging. "A Slow Ride" will be presented at the
Downtown Credo coffeeshop. The actors will perform at one end of
the building, spilling out among the audience. In a sense, the
audience will be "on the bus" with the cast. Hayes is no
stranger to nontraditional staging: He has previously presented
theatrical works in his own living room and broadcast the show
live on the Internet. He'll do the same for "A Slow Ride." The
performance on Sunday, July 21, will be streamed live at
housetheaterproject.com.

"Playwright Joseph Reed Hayes captured the essence of the Jewish spirit in A Little Crazy, a beautifully written and acted drama that was among the best of the 28 shows I saw."

– Orlando Weekly

"Summer is usually time to take things slow, but not for multidisciplinary artist Joseph Hayes, Orlando’s self-described “artistic irritant that creates pearls.” His 13in13 Project (13in13.net) set the “crazy” goal of producing an original work every four weeks in 2013, and last weekend he debuted the eighth, A Slow Ride, a 45-minute single-act slice of life featuring three fractured females.
Jezebel (Jac LeDoux) is an overly emotive ex-hippie grandma whose obsession with numerology and Woodstock-era reminiscences about Grace Slick and Allen Ginsberg may be signs of incipient Alzheimer’s. Also along for the ride are Sue (Wendy Starkand), Jezebel’s exhausted daughter, who feels like a pre-menopausal tarnished penny; and 17-year-old gloomy goth granddaughter Rita (Kate Lockwood), given to dropping pop-culture references (Nine Inch Nails, cyberpunk) that predate her birth.
Hayes’ script steers more toward long, introspective monologues than dramatic action, but his dialogue – which the cast delivered with alacrity – is crisp and quick-witted. Director Sylvia Vicchiullo cleverly utilized College Park’s Downtown Credo coffeehouse, creating audience interaction from before the curtain, and the ensemble did an admirable job making their archetypal roles into relatable characters. The too-soon ending made me wish for a longer journey with these women."

– Orlando Weekly

"United Arts of Central Florida makes annual grants to local artists who “strengthen artistic excellence” in Central Florida. In 2012, local playwright (and former OW dining critic) Joseph Hayes received $2,400 for his House Theater Project, a theatrical-technological hybrid that brings live performances from Hayes’ home to the worldwide web – it doesn’t get much more local than the artist’s own couch. Hayes will stage A Little Crazy, his 2002 play about an elderly Jewish man sharing tales of the past with his nephew in the small time he has left before death (a comedy!) in front of the Collabracam, a breakthrough bit of tech that leashes together multiple cameras and an iPad to make a performance available in real time to anyone with an Internet connection. Earlier this year, United Arts said House Theater Project would “expand the definition of live performance”; a decade ago, our theater critic Steve Schneider called A Little Crazy “beautifully written.” To further heighten the contrast between local and global, live audience members will be seated right on the set, and three of the four shows will include refreshments – one show will be catered by Big Wheel’s Tony Adams, one by Sweet! cupcake mogul Hollis Wilder and one by the playwright himself. Go to housetheaterproject.com to make on-set reservations or tune in to livestream performances."

– Jessica Bryce Young, Orlando Weekly

13in13:

13 independent artistic events, written, produced or presented by Joseph Hayes in 2013, with most shows streamed live online; propelled by a successful Kickstarter campaign; creating art
with 35 musicians, actors, writers, theater professionals and creative artists; and generating more than $26,000 to local artists, venues and restaurants in the process.

CONTACT ME

freelance writer

As a writer on assignment, I've traveled to Italy, Scotland, England, New Orleans, California and New York City, with a specialty on all things Orlando. Whether it's a story about Arts & Crafts houses in Florida or new styles in computers, a Mounted Police squad or alien abduction insurance, I've written it. Environmental issues, music, movie and theater reviews and in-depth conversations with legends in jazz. Interviews and personality profiles are my specialty.

playwright

My plays take place on buses and in bars, in hotel rooms and government offices, farmhouse kitchens and jazz stages. 36 productions and readings of my plays from coast to coast and in three countries since 2001; creator of House Theater Project and the year-long 13in13 series of shows. "Best local playwright: Joseph Hayes" - Orlando Sentinel

food writer

Florida Magazine Association Award winning food writer and Orlando restaurant critic, currently for Orlando Magazine. James Beard Foundation judge, knowledgable champion of world cuisine and avid advocate of undiscovered chefs. I can write about the front of the house of a restaurant as well as the kitchen with equal expertise. Founding member, goFLA/SunshinePlate Central Florida.

jazz producer

Producer of the Jazz On Edge series, spotlighting new and original jazz from Central Florida since 2008, showcasing the best that Central Florida has to offer in jazz to appreciative audiences, giving creative hometown and nationally-known musicians a place to perform their own music, without boundaries, in person and online. Chair of Alternative Programming, Timucua Arts Foundation.